Jury Town

by Stephen Frey

  “Is there something to find, boss?”

  Mitch grabbed Acosta violently by his raincoat lapels. “What do you mean by that?”

  For a split second, Acosta considered asking Mitch about the limousine. “What’s in the envelope that scares you so much?” he asked instead. Mitch was already agitated. Asking about the limousine might send him to the stratosphere.

  “What did Judge Eldridge tell you?” Mitch hissed.

  Now that they were so close, Acosta caught a strong whiff of whiskey on Mitch’s breath. “Back off.” This time he pushed Mitch away with a single burly arm. He just wanted to make the delivery and get home to Sofia. Maybe she’d still want to make love. “Go inside and have another drink.”

  The two men stared each other down through the dim light.

  Finally, Mitch cleared his throat and forced a thin smile. “Yes, I think I will … go inside.”

  “Good.”

  “You call me as soon as you deliver the envelope,” Mitch ordered, the edge in his voice still obvious even as he tried to seem himself again. “I want to know who picks it up.”

  “I’ll call you.”

  Acosta watched Mitch limp a few paces toward the house, then turned and headed for the Explorer. Mitch’s intense expression had included dread, perhaps the expression he’d worn when he’d first realized his leg had been blown off.

  A chill snaked up Acosta’s spine as he climbed into the SUV, grabbed the open pack of cigarettes off the dash, and lit one up as fast as he could. Like his late grandmother, he was prone to premonitions. This one was bad.

  He fired up the SUV and backed hurriedly out of the driveway.

  When his phone rang ten minutes later, he dropped the portfolio of pictures he’d been holding open—to a photo of Sofia on her side in the middle of a big, four-poster bed, gazing demurely back at him—and grabbed the cell off the dash. He’d been starting to think the call wasn’t coming. He’d been wondering what to do with the envelope if no call came. Given how strangely Mitch was acting, he didn’t want to take it home.

  “Hello.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Raul Acosta.”

  “Do you have it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Head for the University of Richmond. When you get there, go to the far corner of Crenshaw Field from the Modlin Center for the Arts. Your contact’s name is Dominick.”

  “Okay, I—look out!”

  Acosta wrenched the steering wheel left, barely avoiding a white-tailed buck standing statue-like in the middle of the wet road—then yanked the wheel right to miss the guardrail now hurtling toward the bumper.

  “Damn deer,” Acosta grumbled when he had the Explorer back in control. “Just good-for-nothing tick barges.” Despite the near hit and the possibility of more deer ahead, he glanced at the passenger seat and Sofia’s photograph. “I can’t keep my eyes off you, can I, baby?” he asked, holding the phone up before him.

  Just as Acosta located Crenshaw Field on Google Maps, the heavens opened up and rain began pouring down in sheets. He dropped his phone on the seat beside the portfolio and flipped on his wipers as he sped out onto the long, graceful span of the Huguenot Memorial Bridge where it crossed the wide James River several miles west of downtown Richmond. The all-night lights of the skyline were barely visible through the downpour.

  He was leaving the South Side and heading to the north bank of the James, the bank on which center city lay, as did his destination—the pricey West End.

  Acosta checked the rearview mirror. That same pair of headlights had been back there for several miles.

  It was probably nothing. But the instincts that made him good at his job, coupled with the other unsettling aspects of this evening, had his antennae up.

  He glanced over at the envelope resting on the passenger seat as the pelting rain played a helter-skelter tune on the SUV’s roof. What was Eldridge sending? Why was he sending it so covertly? Who was he sending it to? And why wasn’t Mitch delivering it?

  That last question wasn’t really fair. If danger was lurking, Mitch didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in San Juan of surviving. And it wouldn’t do for Judge Eldridge’s nephew and chief of staff to be caught up in anything scandalous. The ramifications of that were far too risky for far too many important people around town.

  Acosta checked the rearview mirror again as he passed the north end of the bridge. Those headlights were still back there.

  He raced across the East Branch of Tuckahoe Creek, which paralleled the north bank of the James, and slowed as he approached the stoplight at River Road. Crenshaw Field was only half a mile from the light, and he should be taking a left here.

  But a voice in the back of his head was urging him to go straight through the light. And he never ignored that voice.

  He sped through the intersection, paralleling the golf course of the Country Club of Virginia to his left now, checking the rearview mirror every few seconds. Halfway between River Road and the next left turn, the trailing headlights flashed into view. They seemed nearer. The vehicle was closing in.

  Acosta wheeled the Explorer hard-left and gunned the engine. He raced a quarter mile up Three Chopt, headed hard-right onto Grove, veered left onto Somerset, skidded to a stop behind a Mercedes sedan, cut the lights, and turned quickly to peer over his shoulder.

  A vehicle flew by on Grove. That had to have been the trailer. But was the car chasing him?

  And it hadn’t just looked like your average car. It had looked like a limousine from here, though it was hard to tell for certain through the darkness. If it was a limousine, that would make all this even more strange.

  Acosta jammed the accelerator down and made a quick left onto York after flipping the headlights on again.

  Moments later he turned onto a narrow lane across College Road from the University of Richmond, pulled off to one side, and cut the engine. He climbed out and went to the back of the SUV, exchanging his long, tan raincoat for a shorter, dark-blue slicker, which would be easier to move in. The rain had eased to a mist; however, green echoes on the weather app covered his phone’s screen. Any second it might start pouring again.

  He pulled his 9 mm from his shoulder holster beneath the slicker, made certain the first round was chambered, and then moved to the passenger side of the SUV, where he picked up the portfolio and glanced at Sofia. He considered slipping the photo into his pocket, but finally decided against it. This shouldn’t take long.

  He put it back down, grabbed the envelope, locked the doors, and began jogging toward College Road.

  Rising all around him were stately brick colonials, like Mitch’s. Except these homes cost twice what Mitch’s did on the South Side. This was the West End of Richmond, the city’s highest-rent district.

  He wasn’t familiar with the university grounds, so he kept glancing down at his phone as he jogged, letting it lead him. He turned off the lane, cut through several wooded yards, passed behind a massive home overlooking College, and then waited until he was certain no cars were approaching in either direction before dashing across the two lanes of pavement and quickly heading into the cover of trees lining one end of a soccer field.

  Now he was on university grounds.

  He remained inside the tree line until he was forced to emerge to cross a large parking lot, which lay just west of Crenshaw Field. At the other end of the field, the Modlin Center for the Arts rose up into the gloom, lights gleaming despite the late hour. But he no longer needed physical landmarks or the phone to guide him, so he slipped it into his pocket. Through the gloom, he’d spotted someone standing near the far corner of the field from the building. Who else would be out here at this hour of a nasty morning?

  He drew his gun, prepared to fire if the individual made a sudden move. If this became an incident, Judge Eldridge would protect him.

  The subject wore a long, dark raincoat but that was all Acosta could discern as he approached from behind. He couldn’t tell if the person was hold
ing a gun, but he’d rather have surprise on his side than anything else.

  “Hands up,” Acosta called from ten feet away, pistol out and aimed.

  The figure threw both arms in the air and whirled around. “Don’t shoot!” he begged when he spotted the 9 mm. “I don’t have a gun. I swear to God I don’t have a gun.”

  Acosta had been concerned that associates might be hiding in the area. But the overwhelming fear inscribed in the voice instantly convinced him otherwise. This young man was alone.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Dominick.”

  This guy was no Dominick. He looked more like a Brendan or an Ian. In fact, he reminded Acosta of Mitch with his cherry-blond hair and boyish good looks.

  Acosta reached below his slicker and pulled out the envelope, which was wedged into his belt. “Here, kid,” he muttered, tossing it to the young man, who nearly dropped it. All he wanted to do now was get home to Sofia. “Peace out.”

  He backed off a few steps, keeping his pistol trained on the young man’s chest. The kid looked harmless, but you could never be too careful. Finally, at fifty feet, he turned and jogged back the way he’d come, checking over his shoulder several times.

  After recrossing College, Acosta emerged from the trees of a back lawn out onto the lane fifty feet east of where he’d parked the Explorer. For an instant, he didn’t believe his eyes. The SUV doors were wide open, and two individuals were rooting through it.

  “Hey!” he yelled, blasting a bullet into the air. “Get away from there!”

  A retaliatory shot rang out from behind a car parked up and on the other side of the lane, directly across from the Explorer. The bullet caromed wickedly off something to Acosta’s right.

  He bolted back into the trees, dodging tall oaks and maples as he sprinted from the scene. Bullets tore through the low branches all around him, shredding leaves, as sharp voices shouted out to each other through the night.

  As he closed in on the Explorer, Acosta hurled himself against the trunk of a huge oak, using the tree to steady his hand as he fired five shots in rapid succession.

  A sprinting silhouette pitched forward and tumbled onto the lane; someone screamed, and car doors slammed. Acosta fired three more times as another shadow helped its fallen comrade. An engine fired up, another door slammed shut, and the car raced past. He ducked as more bullets raked the branches around him, and then everything went eerily silent, as if the battle had never occurred.

  He sprinted to his SUV. Shattered glass covered both front seats, and the portfolio was missing. “Damn it!”

  He lumbered around the front of the truck, and a wave of relief rushed through him when he spotted something familiar looking on the pavement. He snatched the portfolio off the wet blacktop and gently smoothed water from its surface.

  Only then did he feel a searing pain in his gut. He glanced down as he yanked his shirt from his pants and lifted it high.

  “Oh, God,” he muttered.

  Blood was pouring from a gaping bullet wound beside his navel. This was the last straw. Once he was out of surgery, he was going to call Judge Eldridge and tell him what was happening with Mitch—the odd behavior tonight, the visits to the limousine downtown, the limousine that had tailed Acosta tonight. He just wished he hadn’t mentioned all of it to Sofia. Mitch was no idiot.

  As Acosta eased down to his knees, he found the photo of Sofia inside the portfolio. “Get me through this, baby,” he gasped. “Get me through this.”

  CHAPTER 6

  CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA

  Victoria climbed from her Lexus and walked to the front of the car, all the while staring up at the dark brick wall. She’d just pulled in beside Cam’s BMW, in almost exactly the same spot her mother had parked that July day twenty-three years ago, when they’d come here from the Shenandoah Valley to pick up her father.

  How had Cameron known? They’d never parked in this lot before. They usually parked in the south lot, where the four big buses that would transport the jurors up from Richmond tomorrow—and away from the facility in case of emergency—were kept.

  Cam parking here couldn’t be a coincidence. She didn’t believe in coincidences—which, she had to admit, was odd because she was completely superstitious. But life wasn’t a cookie-cutter proposition.

  “You okay?” he asked, rising from the 3 Series and moving beside her in front of the Lexus.

  “Yeah.”

  “Ironic, huh?”

  “What?” She knew what he meant. They had no secrets. No lasting ones.

  “It’s ironic that this would be the venue for Jury Town.”

  Cameron had created the name for the facility a few months ago, but neither of them had told anyone yet. They were waiting for the opening of the facility tomorrow to play it for the press. They’d waited so it’d have more of an impact. Everyone would be calling it that after tomorrow night.

  “I’ll give you credit, Victoria.”

  “Why?”

  “You could have chosen Mecklenberg for this. That mothballed prison down on the North Carolina border. But you didn’t.”

  She shrugged as if she didn’t understand. “Archer was better suited for what we needed, more central and much less expensive to refurbish. It wasn’t a difficult decision.”

  “If you’d chosen Mecklenberg, you wouldn’t have had to deal with the ghosts … and the demons.”

  He hadn’t mentioned any of this before today, and the project had been under way for a year. “Why have you waited until now to say this?” she asked.

  “Every time we drove up here together, I’d see the stress building in your expression. You always stopped talking about ten miles out, and your posture would get as rigid as a piece of thick plywood. As soon as you saw the prison wall through the trees, your eyes would go down. You wouldn’t look at it, not even while we were walking toward it to go inside.” Cameron gestured at the wall. “But today’s different. You’re staring straight at it. You’re drinking it in. The same way you did before you made the announcement at the Supreme Court Building.”

  Her gaze ran along the top of the tall, dark wall to the nearest surveillance tower and then up to the observation deck—no Devil’s angels up there today. “My father died of lung cancer before he could go after Judge Hopkins and make things right.”

  Cameron nodded. “And Judge Hopkins died of a stroke before you could go after him, which I’m sure you would have.”

  “I promised my father on his deathbed I would. But you’re right. Hopkins died before I had the chance. Before I could expose him for the criminal he was.”

  “But that doesn’t explain why today is different, why you can look at the wall without all that bitterness.”

  “It’s not a prison anymore, Cam. It’s actually Jury Town.”

  “Thanks to you.”

  She reached out for his hand and squeezed his fingers. “Thanks to both of us.” She took a deep breath. “Where’s that envelope you got last night?”

  He reached into his coat pocket and pulled it out.

  She took it, ripped it open, and read.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  Her heart was suddenly racing. “Nothing.”

  “Come on, Victoria. What’s going on?”

  The door to Archer opened, and a man stepped out. Victoria shook her head at Cameron—now wasn’t the time—and pulled him toward the wall. “Let’s go.”

  Once the security guard had let them in, Victoria and Cameron hurried down the facility’s long administrative corridor. One wall was cluttered with broken furniture and large cardboard boxes bursting at the seams with junk. These were the final, unusable remnants of Archer Prison, which would be hauled off later today. When the last of it was gone, the renovation would be complete and the facility ready for the nation’s first professional jurors.

  “Does all this clutter remind you of anything?” Cameron asked, pointing at the debris as they hustled toward Clint Wolf, who was standing outside his of
fice.

  “What are you talking about?” Victoria asked, waving to Wolf.

  She’d hired Clint a year ago to oversee reconstruction of the prison—and then run the facility’s day-to-day operation after the jurors arrived.

  “It looks a lot like the top of your desk.”

  “Thank you very little,” she retorted, laughing.

  “Yeah, well, I’m surprised FEMA’s never shown up at your door.”

  “Be glad they haven’t,” Wolf said loudly with a wry grin. He was a tall, thick, full-blooded Cherokee who wore his straight black hair in a tight ponytail that fell from beneath his wide, white Stetson all the way to his belt in the back. “Things usually get worse after they do. I know from experience.” Wolf nodded at Cameron, then at Victoria. “She’s disorganized?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Cameron confirmed.

  “Really,” Wolf murmured as if the revelation came as a surprise.

  “That’s the great thing about working for her. I’ll always have a job because—”

  “Never would have thought that,” Wolf interrupted, motioning them to follow as he turned away. “Let’s go. Things have changed quite a bit since you two were here last.”

  Clint Wolf had spent seventeen years at the Federal Bureau of Prisons. His last post had been assistant director in charge of the massive Correctional Programs Division—where he’d been responsible for over a hundred federal prisons and more than two hundred thousand inmates. During his three-year tenure as head of CPD, only seven prisoners had escaped. Six had been recaptured within four days, while one had been killed in a gun battle after just an hour of freedom.

  As far as Victoria was concerned, Wolf was eminently qualified and completely capable of keeping two hundred jurors inside this facility … as well as keeping their enemies out.

  She wasn’t as convinced of Wolf’s ability to keep influence out and, just as importantly, of his ability to maintain peace at the facility. She wasn’t convinced anyone could maintain that on a permanent basis. The team of psychologists who’d advised her on the project had predicted that the “cabin fever syndrome” would erupt at Archer Prison at some point.